Publishing for Tablets: Data Formats for Fixed, Flowable Content

In the last article in the Publishing for Tablet series, What You Need To Know About iOS and Android, we discussed which tablets and operating systems a publisher should target. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, it is time to tackle the more juicy problems.

Today’s question: How the dickens can I get my content to fit onto tablet screens and enhance my content using the wonders of digital, while retaining a production workflow that doesn’t break the bank? Well, it turns out that not all content is created equal — let’s look at that first.

Flowable Content vs. Fixed Form Content

Some content flows. It is easy to imagine how flowable content can fit on to a screen of any size in any orientation. The content (the words, pictures and videos) is what matters. The layout is arbitrary. Some content doesn’t flow. The content and layout are conjoined at birth, designed for a certain size page. Adapting this content for different orientations and aspect ratios is far from easy.

In my world, we crudely separate publisher into books, newspapers and magazines. In each of these categories, you can find publications that flow, and some that don’t. Here are some examples:

	Fixed Form	Flowable
Books	Most Children's Books	Most Fiction
Magazines	Most Glossies	Most Journals
Newspapers	Most Tabloids	Most Papers/Broadsheets

Competing Production Workflows

Fixed-form content is typically produced using desktop publishing tools (such as Adobe InDesign) as part of a print-centric workflow. If the content does need to be repurposed for another page size or orientation, it is normally a labor of love for the designer, which becomes expensive quickly. Many of the existing iPad magazines currently have a workflow that involves laying out the magazine three times — one for print, one for landscape and one for portrait. Some publications that started supporting both landscape and portrait have already dropped one to reduce the production costs.

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In the last article in the Publishing for Tablet series, What You Need To Know About iOS and Android, we discussed which tablets and operating systems a publisher should target. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, it is time to tackle the more juicy problems.

Today’s question: How the dickens can I get my content to fit onto tablet screens and enhance my content using the wonders of digital, while retaining a production workflow that doesn’t break the bank? Well, it turns out that not all content is created equal -- let’s look at that first.

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